Hughes back for Hobart, but where's Warne?

There is something affirming about watching a landmark moment in a large group. Whether it is an event of historical significance or an unusual sporting achievement, the shared sense of wonder, euphoria or even anticlimax heightens the sense of occasion.

I saw the best part of Phillip Hughes's maiden Test century against South Africa in March, 2009, on a large screen in a bar at a football stadium. Like many, I was still glued to the spot watching the then 20-year-old thrashing and thick edging boundaries with breathtaking audacity long after the footy had started. Around me, people interrupted the pre-game banter and urged friends to look up. It felt like the start of something very special.

Almost four years later, the relentless cross-bat swipes that seemed the making of Hughes have long proven to be his fatal flaw. It turned out Hughes's early innings were more like Greg Norman's first round at Augusta than his Sunday back nine. The part where, under the most testing conditions, the Shark literally went to water.

Hughes has subsequently become one of the most compelling examples of a sportsman whose strength is also his greatest weakness. An incredible eye, a boxer's reflexes, lightning hands. But a technique that could not avoid the traps laid for him by the best bowlers on juicy strips.

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By the time he was dropped - and dropped again - from the Australian team, he had become the first batsman sponsored by Snickometer. Slips fielders would not bother taking practice knowing Hughes would give them a good workout in the middle. Scorers would put his mode of dismissal in the book before he arrived at the crease, waiting only to see if he hit a boundary or two before getting a nick. Seldom has a player been so relentlessly hoisted on his own petard.

Now Hughes returns to the Australian team. Deservedly so on ''weight of runs'' - a principle the new selection panel has re-adopted, at the expense of the badly flawed idea that the next man on the Cricket Australia contract list, rather than those near the top of the Shield averages, should get a game.

Hughes is an unusual case among the many batsmen who have been recalled after a period in the wilderness. With 1072 Test runs at 34.58 and three centuries in 17 Tests, he has already achieved considerable success at the top level, but in an unsustainable manner. Hughes did not merely get a couple of unplayable deliveries, some bad decisions or throw his wicket away in a moment of ill-discipline. He was ruthlessly exposed.

The obvious test of Hughes's character was how he would handle the sudden appearance of his cricketing Kryptonite. The obstinate - or plain stupid - would ignore the evidence and continue to do it their own way. Hughes, wisely, seems to have contemplated the red-stained edges of his bat, swallowed his ego and returned to the batting guru and the nets.

Now, in Hobart, those of who have not seen Hughes during this Sheffield Shield season - and, given that competition attracts smaller crowds than Estonian clog dancing festivals, that includes most - will be introduced to the left-hander's new ''two-sided batting technique''. Which is a fancy way of saying a player who once struck the ball through the on side about as often as James Packer catches a bus can now, supposedly, pull and push to leg.

The selectors' confession that they did not want to expose Hughes to the carnivorous South Africans, and instead set him up for an easy kill against the modest Sri Lankan attack, was on the bizarre side of unusual. Surely, a better form of protection for callow batsmen would come from Michael Clarke and perhaps Michael Hussey moving up a spot or two and allowing lesser players the luxury of coming in at five and six.

Still, Hughes's return is the first fascinating trial of the post-Ponting era. Others, such as Matthew Hayden, have returned from an ignominious Test exodus to dominate. But Hayden had not succeeded at Test level when he was first discarded. Hughes is attempting to achieve the same results as in his brilliant first incarnation in a different manner. Largely, by adding a more orthodox defence and a greater array of strokes to a swashbuckling, but one-dimensional, game.

The result might not be a batsman who causes football fans to miss the kick-off. But, if reports of Hughes's recalibration prove to be more than wishful thinking, he will be a batsman far more valuable to Australia's long-term prospects.